40% of patients with advanced lung cancer do not present any suspicious symptoms

The 40% of patients diagnosed with advanced lung cancer had not presented no symptoms of suspicion before, according to the clinical chief of the Thoracic Surgery Service of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Juan Carlos Trujillo. The 85% of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage, when there are few options for cure.

The main risk factor continues to be the smoking, but there is a 15% of cases occurring in non-smokers. and often present tumors with molecular alterations. Therefore, the Cassandra pilot project, with the participation of Sant Pau and led by the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) is committed to the screening programs in the most at-risk populations.

A number of European and North American studies have shown that screening programs reduce mortality by 20% to 40%. from lung cancer and between 7% and 20% overall mortality.

Trujillo has pointed out that the project wants to go hand in hand with the. primary prevention and carry out lung cancer screening. and those diseases associated with smoking with the participation of more than 10 Spanish scientific societies, patient associations and several healthcare centers. Currently, a twenty hospitals from up to 14 autonomous communities have already joined it.

The Cassandra program

Cassandra provides for annual nationwide lung cancer screening with. low-dose computed tomography (LDCT), which is the indicated test to detect this tumor, but also a smoking cessation program.

According to SEPAR data, 34% of the Spanish population smokes. Although the habit has been reduced in males aged 50 years, it has risen sharply among young people and is currently increasing in women.

In the case of the Hospital de Sant Pau, the following is carried out. multidisciplinary approach to patients with lung cancer. As far as the latest innovations are concerned, immunotherapy is the first-line treatment in patients with advanced lung cancer and without contraindications, combined or not with chemotherapy. This treatment it is also effective both before and after surgery in localized disease and in locally advanced disease after a radical chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.